


If Love Wants You: Love Is Soil

by blessedharlot



Series: If Love Wants You [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Breathes, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Plants, S'mores
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 13:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13812159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: Distributing food was the easy part of Bucky’s new project. The harder part was the learning curve on nurturing things. He couldn’t remember ever trying to help anything grow before. He was sure he must have at some point, but nothing came to mind. He wanted to know more.-=-=-=-=-It’s time for some BuckyNat fluff, as he finally really gets his hands in the dirt at Steve’s farm, and she considers what home really means. This is the conclusion to this series, with a focus on satisfaction and peacefulness.





	1. Haul Your Weight From Simple Sea to Gravity of Land

**Author's Note:**

> The titles of this series and all the stories within it are taken from Anne Michaels’ poem “Last Night’s Moon.”

Within a week of being back on Steve’s farm, Bucky had accidentally started an illegal food bank. Although, to be fair, Steve and Sam were the culprits who set him up in his new life of crime.

There were apparently quite a few rules and regulations on how to legally feed other people. Steve and Sam had diligently studied up on the matter, while Bucky was gone. They’d also diligently researched and mapped out routes they'd use to reach neighbors in need, once they had food to distribute. And when it was time, the three of them loaded up the truck, and Bucky did the honors of making the rounds. He found himself meeting with isolated shut-ins, and apartment complexes closer into town, young parents struggling with first children and larger families trying to stretch budgets. He brought them rhubarb and carrots and strawberries and potatoes to choose from. It was something to supplement what they had, at least. 

Distributing food was the easy part of Bucky’s new project. The harder part was the learning curve on nurturing things. He couldn’t remember ever trying to help anything grow before. He was sure he must have at some point, but nothing came to mind. And he wanted to know more.

So first, he read. 

He read the leads Steve gave him, and wandered around gardening sites online. He even stepped outside his comfort zone, and made an account on an online forum called itsatreehuggingthing.com, so he could ask questions. Myfriendboughtafarm was received warmly by the forum members as a curious new gardener.

He also dug in the soil.

As he worked, Bucky got his hands into the various additives Steve had already researched and purchased stock of. There was the soft, dark, crumbly mushroom compost and the thicker, clay-like cow manure. There was the dusty, bright white vermiculite and the gravelly topsoil.

Steve had already started more vegetables - some late tomatoes, and broccoli and brussels sprouts. He’d sown some pumpkins too, choosing a variety that’s not great for eating, but would carve well for jack-o-lanterns. Bucky suspected they’d be hauling that yield around town for distribution as well, come Halloween. He got his hands dirty, in a brand new way, weeding and tending to the seedlings as they grew. He learned first hand what the plants looked like at each stage. And he listened as Steve shared what he’d learned about various pests and problems to watch for.

Bucky also haunted nurseries. 

There were still bad nights. When he had one, Bucky developed the habit of getting dressed early the next morning and heading to his favorite nursery. It was a 52 minute drive, approximately, and they kept a wide variety of seeds, seedlings, larger plants and organic additives on hand. He’d wander down the long, quiet rows of growing things… reading the tags and admiring the different textures and leaf shapes. Sometimes he’d linger in the succulents aisle, with their thick leaves that can hold everything they need for ages, all at once. Satisfaction was their near constant state. Sometimes he’d ponder the hothouse flowers, that were so delicate and precise in their needs, and demanded special care.

Eventually, some plants seemed to want to come home with him. And he couldn't he say no to that.

  
  


Bucky was working in the front yard when he noticed Sam pulling into the driveway, coming home from work. He waited until Sam got close to get his attention. Sam looked so tired; it must have been a rough shift.

“Hey, Sam.”

Sam jumped, and stopped in his tracks. 

Bucky then realized that Sam might not have thought to check the trees in the front yard for occupants before crossing it. 

“Up here,” Bucky said and waved. “Hi.”

Sam looked up and found him.

“I got you a plant!” Bucky said.

Sam stared unblinking.

“It lives up here. It likes trees, I guess? Its an air plant. It lives in the air, it doesn't need soil.” 

Bucky shifted the plant so its delicate tendrils were visible from Sam’s angle.

Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“An air plant! Get it?” Bucky repeated.

Sam resumed his silent walk to the front door and went inside.

 

 

Steve had planted the wallflowers that Bucky requested before he left, in a long bed in front of the house. And they had flourished, now providing a sea of frilly, pale white petals and a beautiful scent. But there were several other beds up near the perimeter of the house that still stood empty. 

Bucky deliberated what to do with the beds. Should he attract pollinators to help their crops? Should he investigate the edible flowers he’d heard about? Should he plant something “not useful” - something that just existed and enjoyed the sun? All three ideas appealed to him.

So he decided he’d try them all.

One sad, sunny day, he impulse bought a slat of impatiens - little fluffy green plants with tender, silky purple flowers. He decided to put them in a side bed near the driveway. More people would see them that way. They made him feel better; maybe they would have that effect on others as well. 

He found a “bee mix” of various wildflower seeds and put them in the bed closest to the crops. Bucky hadn’t quite caught on how they were wildflowers if he was sowing seeds for them. But that’s what the package was calling them, so he’d play along until he understood better.

He used the seed catalog to order seeds for edible flowers called nasturtiums. The photos showed friendly-looking, brilliant yellow flowers on bushes with leaves that looked like little lily pads. If Steve’s sacred catalog said every part of the plant was edible, Bucky was definitely up for trying it.

The beds, it turned out, became a good place for his larger projects. But the individual plants he brought home needed a place too. And rather than spread them through the whole house, he claimed a second story balcony, accessible from a hallway, that got lots of sun and currently stood quite empty.

The balcony quickly became a home for upwards of two dozen different plants. He discovered that he really liked how his head felt when his hands were in the dirt, or when he saw a plant he was helping to grow. Whenever he got shaky, or happy, or bored, he cared for his plants. Or he bought more.

  
  


“The dishes are finally done.”

Bucky was puttering around his collected plants on the balcony - watering and plucking dry leaves - when Steve arrived and announced the kitchen task complete.

“Most of those were mine,” Bucky replied. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Steve waved away Bucky’s protest, and leaned over the nearest cluster of leaves to look closer.

“Is this one new?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, that’s for you. I mean,” Bucky straightened up to explain himself. “It reminded me of you. So I brought it home.”

“I like it,” Steve said. “The leaves are so glossy. And the flower is great. What is it?”

“A peace lily.”

“Neat. Thank you,” Steve said. “Wait. Is there any connection between plants reminding you of people, and Sam mumbling something about you putting something in a tree for him?”

“Yes,” Bucky replied cryptically.

Steve nodded sagely. Then something seemed to occur to him, and he looked at Bucky meaningfully and smiled.

Bucky looked his way, and realized he wasn’t going to stop smiling until Bucky proved him as clever as he thought he was being. 

So, slightly embarrassed, Bucky walked toward his newest acquisition.

“Sarra, meet Steve. Steve, Sarra.”

“Hi, Sarra. Very nice to meet you,” As Steve played along with pleasantries, Bucky checked the shallow dish of water Sarra sat in.

“Sarracenia purpurea,” Bucky said. “It really loves a lot of water. Could practically just sit in it. Has to be distilled, though. Very sensitive to tap water additives.”

“The little, speckled pitcher shaped things are gorgeous,” Steve said.

“They’re little stomachs. It catches insects with those.”

“It’s a carnivorous plant?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded. “Seemed appropriate.” Bucky smiled. “I started to get a Venus Flytrap in her honor. But that’s just too... common. And inelegant. Big, obvious traps slamming shut. This was better,” Bucky mused. “Good curves.”

Steve nodded. “I know she’ll enjoy meeting Sarra. Whenever she gets home from this mission that’s dragging on.”

Bucky kept his worry to himself, and simply nodded. He hadn’t been home long before Nat had to leave quickly. She gave him lots of kisses and assurances that everything was fine. That was 5 weeks ago and they hadn’t heard much since.

“You’ve gotten more cacti too,” Steve said.

“I like the succulents. Very stoic.”

“Indeed,” Steve said.

“I like…” Bucky paused, and searched for words. 

Steve patiently waited, the way he always did.

“The succulents have their needs,” Bucky said. “Loose soil, sparse water. The air plants have theirs. Water, no soil. The peace lily needs good drainage, but wants to stay moist too. You can just constantly spray the leaves down. Not like the crops. The sarracenia? Soak it. Loves the mud.”

Steve considered Bucky.

Bucky shrugged as he checked the succulents again. “The differences are comforting. Somehow.”

Bucky looked up to find Steve grinning like an idiot again. Bucky sighed.

“What?” Bucky groaned.

“Nothing!” Steve shrugged. “I’m just happy you’re happy.”

“Whatever.”

“Well, when you’re at a stopping point here with whatever, Sam and I are going to start the movie soon. He’s got popcorn going. You gonna join us?”

“Still the family kernels?”

“Oh yeah, plenty of the pink kernels left.”

Bucky nodded. “I’ll be down shortly.”

He waited until Steve had gone back inside to pick up his phone and check for a response from Barton.

There was a message waiting.

“No word yet,” it read.


	2. Hearing Our Names Called Home

Natasha laid on the horn, and cursed the traffic. She had no patience left. Everything stirred the dry rage inside her.

She didn’t want to think about how much of her childhood she’d had to relive to get this terrible job done. She didn’t want to talk to anyone she knew. She didn’t want to think about how the life she’d built as an adult felt foreign and distant right now, as though she’d drowned in the memories she’d been forced to dredge up, and now she couldn’t come back.

She just wanted to go to the ridiculous condo she’d bought for this ridiculous mission, with its ridiculously impersonal furniture and flashy view. And she wanted to celebrate completing the job by drinking herself into a stupor. No contact with the world… including anyone who would suspect she might consider them her home.

This new place was home enough. She had a key and she paid the rent. That made it home. That was how it worked. She was getting too sentimental and that’s the primary reason she felt so jagged inside right now.

That kind of life she’d tried just clearly wasn’t for her kind. She’d made some bad choices and she just needed to man up. She let all that normalcy get too familiar.

It had been so long since she’d carried this much cold anger inside of her. She was losing track of how to numb herself. This was bad. It did not bode well. She’d gotten soft and weak and it would get her killed in her line of work. She wasn’t built for all this emotion.

The idiots on the road finally got out of her way. She secured herself a large bottle of vodka and made it home and used her key - the only key - to her apartment. She passed through the bare entryway without paying it any attention, mind set on the bathroom in the back of the condo, where she would shower and wash off some of her mistakes.

On her way to the bathroom, though, she got quite distracted by the blanket fort someone had built out from her ridiculously expensive dining table.

Natasha stood staring at it, mouth agape.

Her comforter joined at least four blankets she’d never seen before. The fort maker had, it seemed, also annexed the back of her couch and the nearest end table, to make quite the shelter.

Natasha blinked at the stretched and suspended blankets several times. But they still weren’t making much sense.

But for the moment, her rage felt lighter in her hands.

She decided the best course of action was to investigate the light source in the fort -- on the floor, just off the far end of the couch.

She walked around to the side closest to the light, and found an entryway in the form of a slit in the blanket coverage. She reached for it and hesitated.

_What was the appropriate way to enter a strange blanket fort established in one’s own home?_ Through her deep fatigue, Nat still found she had to give the question the respect it deserved. _Should I ask for entry? There’s nothing to knock on. Does it work by password, perhaps?_

She withdrew her hand, and said to the blanket with confidence, “The crow barks at midnight.”

At her words, one side of the blanket lifted. She finally set her wallet and vodka down and crawled inside.

James sat just inside, with an eyebrow raised.

“Were you followed?” he whispered.

“There were two joes tailing me when I left Marceline at the marina, but I lost them.”

“Oh good,” James looked relieved. “I don’t have enough s’mores supplies for that many people.”

Nat looked behind him, and he did in fact have supplies for s’mores. Along with chak chak, what looked to be Chinese takeout, and three more bottles of vodka. There were pillows and more comforters everywhere.

Nat wasn’t a blanket fort kind of person. But this one, she might tolerate.

Nat opened her mouth to say something to keep up the ruse of the game. But the softness of the pillow under her, in the ridiculous blanket fort, as she sat next to James, temporarily left her speechless.

“Barton got wind of the mission,” James said with concern. “Said it was bad.”

Nat’s vision got blurry. She frowned and she nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Nat looked for words. But she couldn’t find any. She pursed her lips together and shook her head.

Before she knew it, Nat was laying her head on James’ shoulder and wrapping her arms around his chest. He held her to him, cradling her, stroking her hair, and she very quietly began to cry.

Nat didn’t know how much time passed. But when she started thinking again, she felt a bit lighter. And she realized she was famished.

They repositioned so Nat could just lean back on him as they ate. He stroked her hair and held her while she wolfed down food. When she had had her fill, they put it to the side and James just surrounded her with him. She lay limp in his arms.

“Did you finish what you needed to do?” he asked.

Nat was silent for a long while. Finally, she whispered, “Yes.”

He kissed her on the forehead.

“Come home with me, then,” he said.

Nat curled up tighter in his arms, and nodded.


End file.
